Mystery Californian Produce

So my American homestyle chef was outside getting groceries and returned with these strange objects for me to cook something ‘incredible’ with. Challenge accepted!

From left to right we have a pomello, or a daddy grapefruit, unrefined cane sugar and a mystery root vegetable aka yucca root.

Now, I’m not sure what to do with a yucca so I headed over to my facebook page where my learned food fans would totally shine a ray or two of culinary wisdom on the matter:

Kirsty Long: Yuccanae dae much with a yucca…

Baron Septimus Tardesque-Oatmeal: Isn’t a yucca a sort of woody plant? I used to have one… (it died)

Dan Formless: Chucka the yukka!

Mat Harris: yeah stuff it up ure arse

Awesome guys!

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FYI, I initially thought the yucca was a yam, and it’s just as well it wasn’t cos my facebookers were about as much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle on this one:

Jake Skelton: Make something yam-azing!

Dave Reilly: You could carve a small hole in it and make it a woman

Linda Henderson: Chop it in half then uve gotoyam! Lol u could b yamming! Haha

Sierra Laserkitten-Harvey: Throw it the fuck away!

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Anyway, it turns out that yucca can be treated in much the same way as a potato. So here’s what I’m going to do: make a delicious salad with the pomero using some of the cane sugar as part of a vinaigrette, and serve this with some incredible yucca chips! Oooh yeah!

I start by peeling the pomero:

It appears it is surrounded by tons of cavity wall insulation and is really spongy! We will have to dig a bit further to uncover its hidden depths:

….pomero is a lot like grapefruit though no where near as bitter and any parts that are bitter seem to be limited to the connective tissue so if you make this salad, make sure you are realz strict about only including the flesh…

Anyway, on to the cane sugar:

I add this to some olive oil and water to complete the vinaigrette, and I’ve brought along some local fresh figs for an additional yucca accompaniment:

Next, I par boil the chopped yucca for ten mins:

and fry these in some ground nut oil with a hearty knob of butter for seven mins:

Next up, I assemble my stunning yucca chips with some of the salad and serve (I added some balsamic vinegar for extra cut):

Root vegetable explosion IN YOUR FACE

….and how’s it taste?

Yucca chips are super nice: they have a nutty, earthy flavor that potato just doesn’t have and the salad of figs and pomero and sugar compliment everything super nicely; my only gripe is that I could have chopped the fries fatter for they are a tad dry. But overall, this was a great success and I’m really happy with the results!

So, are you given random ingredients to cook with? Are your facebook fans full of totally inspirational advice too? Have you ever been to Hull? Answers on a postcard please.

Or Twitter.

And check me out on huffpost